


If I Ever Loved a Dream

by jvo_taiski



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childhood, F/F, F/M, Hope, War, i got serious luna feels, i guess it's angsty, this is canon you can't change my mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26582917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jvo_taiski/pseuds/jvo_taiski
Summary: She holds Dean’s hand in the dark, keeps Ginny feeling the light. Guides Neville through the grey and shows Theodore who he is. But with Rolf, she looks at the stars.5 people who looked at Luna and fell in love, and how she walked their dreams with a different worlds at the tip of her tongue.(set during the deathly hallows-- the time Luna spent imprisoned in the Malfoy Manor and an exploration of how it affected the people who loved her)
Relationships: Luna Lovegood/Dean Thomas (one-sided), Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley (one-sided), Luna Lovegood/Rolf Scamander, Luna Lovegood/Theodore Nott (one-sided), Neville Longbottom/Luna Lovegood (one-sided)
Kudos: 17





	If I Ever Loved a Dream

**Author's Note:**

> yeah,,  
> i got serious luna feels. and like the tags say, this is canon and you can't change my mind.

* * *

_I Thought I Found What You Were Looking For_

It’s dark and damp, like it always is. But Dean doesn’t notice.

It’s beautiful where he is now, where there are lights and laughter and it’s always warm, where there’s someone holding his hand gently, giving him promises of _no more death, no more blood, no more war—_ and in the moment, there’s no reason why Dean wouldn’t bathe in the unsaid words like liquid heroin. Everything is right.

He feels lighter than he’s felt since he was just a kid with his first box of real felt-tip pens, since the letter that told him _there’s magic, real magic_ —since the days that bled away too quickly like molten silver through his outstretched arms. And best of all, it feels like he’s on a permanent high and there’s no reason why he needs to grab the moment and cling to it before it’s ripped away because it’s not leaving him, it never is.

They’re chasing something. He can’t tell what it is but they’re laughing and they’re in no real rush, not really. Maybe, it’s leading them somewhere. Dean doesn’t know why, and there’s nothing in his mind telling him to question it. Once or twice, they come close enough to feel a rush of adrenaline _(we’ve caught up, we’ve nearly made it!)_ but whatever is always dances just out of reach. Dean doesn’t mind. He’ll find it eventually and they have all the time in the world, after all.

Then the world shifts and everything comes into more focus, it’s less hazy but just as bright—they’re there, wherever _there_ may be. Dean feels joy bubbling up inside his heart, _knows_ he’s about to see something wondrous—

“Luna!” he sits up, feeling stings of pain and the first jabs of cold as he instinctively reaches for the girl sleeping beside him. “I’ve found them!”

But she stays asleep and Dean’s words slip up from his throat but die on his tongue. _I’ve found the nargles and we’ll go find them together._ She looks sad and pale and her brow is drawn, even asleep and his dream is already trickling away like cold water, leaving him hollow and _cold, so fucking cold._

Luna shouldn’t be pale and drawn and sad, she shouldn’t be shivering and starving and she shouldn’t be behind iron bars. If Dean could, he would take her small hand in his own and fly them away to the good place, the warm world in his dreams and her own. But that imprint of the good feeling is already fading from his mind and however hard he screws his eyes up and _longs_ for it, he can’t make it stay, not when it’s already making room for the cold and dark that seems to live in his bones these days.

There’s nothing he can do but take her grimy fingers in his, brush aside a dirty-blonde lock that still glows dully in the darkness of the Malfoy dungeons. It’s somehow better and worse when he can see her face clearly.

She makes him smile and brings back just a tiny part, a reminder of a better place, but it hurts so much Dean feels it welling up inside him and threatening to wash over and consume him completely. So all he does is take her cold hand and share their last bit of warmth between them, while they both ache for better days.

* * *

_We Never Realised How Much It Would Hurt_

The world feels muted without her, like someone’s drawn a black and white veil over her eyes. Every whisper in the corridors feels amplified, every laugh wrong and jarring—but Ginny’s stopped paying attention to it. There’s no point wincing when a 3rd year appears with a fresh scar on her face, it’s not worth glancing back when someone lets out a teary sigh. And there’s no point reaching out and asking a friend _are you okay_ because they’re not, none of them are, and they’re all being taken away anyway, one by one.

One thing she can do is stand straight and look the Carrows straight in the eye, refuse to flinch when they try and break her. They’re succeeding, little by little, but she can’t let them see that. And all of them seem to understand _(even though they’re just kids, all of them—)_ because nobody breaks the thin silence when they’re together. Even one wrong word could shatter something and leave their fragile pieces of morale scattered on the stone.

So Ginny is strong. Even if she does always instinctively turn her head when there’s a fleeting glimpse of blonde hair because _that’s not Luna, she’s not here anymore—_ she’s not dead, she can’t be dead. She’s tough. Sometimes, Ginny repeats those words in her head like a mantra and sometimes it helps.

Sure, she still sees tousled black hair and a flash of green eyes and glasses out of the corners of her eyes in the corridors but the little jump of hope that used to accompany it is fading. It’s even worse when she walks past a mirror or a piece of her own red hair blows out of place because it’s always one of _them_ she sees, one of her older brothers. God knows where Ron is, or even if he’s still alive.

But there are always silver earrings and wide blue-grey eyes haunting her dreams, when she can’t control how strong she is, when she can’t help slipping up. It makes her guilty sometimes because she feels like she should be tracing a lightning-shaped scar and holding a tanned seeker’s hand, but she can’t help it. In her mind, it’s always her best friend Luna and her drifting smile. And in the end, it doesn’t matter anyway. No point getting worked up over something so small when everyone could die tomorrow.

So she wakes up every grey morning with a scream on her lips and the ghosts of deathly pale hands just out of reach. Sometimes, she gets near enough to feel a fading laugh or catch a glimpse of a radish necklace or a flower crown but it doesn’t matter in the end. Somehow or another, she always ends up with a bone-deep ache in her heart and nothing but a pillow to soak up her tears.

_I’ll do it for you._ Ginny will stay strong, no matter how alone she feels, because there’s nothing else to do but wait and hope.

* * *

_Guide Me Through a World of Grey_

While he keeps his chin up on the outside, tries to show he’s a strong leader, never failing, _can’t break, don’t show them you’re useless, nobody else is left, have to keep strong—_ he feels himself slipping. But he can’t. There’s nobody to lean on anymore—Harry’s gone, their natural leader, and Hermione and Ron with him. _(Not confirmed, nobody knows where they are, but it’s for a reason and he trusts them because who else can he trust to make this all okay?)_

So it’s up to him to restart Dumbledore’s Army _(even though he’s dead)_ and try his best to guide people to the light, show them hope, even though he’s not doing a very good job of showing himself. He and Ginny help each other sometimes but secretly, they’re just as lost as the other. Seamus has a dead look in his eye even though he stands up with them, Lavender stays stoic but she’s drifting, just like everyone else, Ernie orders everyone assertively but he’s cracking—

The worst part about leading is not having anyone to turn to when he needs a helping hand. And even if everyone pretends, keeps a strong face for the kids, _she’s gone, another one,_ and he doesn’t know how much longer they can manage. Even if they have no choice but to carry on. For his parents. Harry, Ron and Hermione. All the muggle-borns and the rest of the world. For her.

She used to keep him company. A friend. A quiet companion, someone steady and solid even if the rest of the world said she was loopy, flaky, her head in the clouds.

Sure, she was strange, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t always understand her eccentric thoughts or outlandish theories, of wrackspurts and nargles and tales of long-forgotten creatures that she painted with her words, colours and facts flying through the air in her soft, simple voice—music, in a way. He often got lost trying to keep up with her brilliant mind _(she’s smart, really smart, she helped him with magic when he struggled, didn’t judge when he’d spend hours practising spells that came naturally to her—)_ and her flowing imagination.

Her thoughts would jump from one vibrant topic to the next, to grounded and rational fact, and it was all Neville could do to run afterward her and try and understand, because she was _(she is, she’s not dead)_ interesting, yet nobody else wanted to put in the effort. And even if he was left hanging on a loose end, ideas of dragons and cumple-snorks or whatever the hell they were—she was never impatient. She always took his hand and did her best to guide him down the path of her mind _(always flowing, just like a river)_ and he always did his best to follow.

Now she’s gone. And he’s a little lost without her steady presence, her dependable spark at the end of a winding thought. She’s not here to steer him in the right direction, to take his hand when he gets frustrated, calming, and she’s not here to show him a different, magical way of looking.

But he’s staying strong _(partly for her—mostly for her)_ and whenever things seem hopeless, whenever there’s a problem he can’t wind his head around, he always turns back to Luna and _what would Luna do?_

Don’t panic. Chin up. There’s always a solution, even if it’s somewhere else nobody would ever suspect.

* * *

_I'm Not Brave but You Make Me Better_

“Hello Theodore.”

He freezes. Three thoughts fly through his mind through the same time: _It’s Looney Lovegood. She’s locked in the Malfoy dungeon. And she knows my name?_

She says it pleasantly, like the bones in her wrists aren’t sticking out like the blunt edge of a knife, like her voice isn’t rasping from lack of water and like she isn’t locked behind iron bars and _he’s not, he’s on the opposite side and he’s not doing anything—_

For some reason, his brain seems to have stupefied because it’s at this point that it really hits him that nothing is right in this world anymore because Looney Lovegood _should not be a prisoner of war_. He used to be able to turn a blind eye to everything happening around him, ignore the uneasy feeling brewing in his gut— _father says they deserve it_ —but Luna Lovegood is not a mudblood. She’s a kid, and a blood traitor.

She’s here because she’s brave enough to do what Theo could never do and he hates himself for it. Luna can look at the world and see it’s _wrong_ and she can stand up to try and change it. And she’s just a kid.

He remembers her in school—a year younger than him and completely barmy, or so the rest of the school said. She lives in his mind as someone he noticed, but was indifferent to. There are memories of him shoving her out of the way, knocking books out of her hands. He remembers doing it reflexively once, but stopping to help her pick them up because there was nobody else around. He remembers walking away without a word, but not before he saw her expression—always lofty, head in the clouds, unchangeable despite the way his friends _(and him, he regrets it but he still did it)_ always pushed her aside and laughed.

And in that sense, it’s really not surprising she’s here at all. Clear sight from her view above the clouds. Not like Theodore, who’s done his best to shove his eyes in dirt.

He remembers the confused look he left her with, that one time he did something nice _(it wasn’t even nice, goddammit, he was the one who knocked the books out of her hands in the first place)_ and suddenly, nothing’s fair anymore. Luna shouldn’t be surprised when people are nice to her, and Luna shouldn’t be in a dungeon. She should be wearing her radish earrings and staring into space in the corridors, as if there’s something nobody else could see _(maybe there is)_ , and writing absolute shit down in her little notebooks.

And Theo’s heart breaks a little because she should still be a kid, like she exists in his dreams, but she’s not anymore. And she is everything Theo could never be—brave.

So he tries his best. For her.

He can’t let her out, they both know that, but it’s the small things. Most days, he slips her extra food, transfigures it into something palatable to the best of his abilities. He slips her a book to read. He sees her wincing and spends a night and a day learning healing charms to fix her ribs.

And whenever he can, he keeps her company.

She calls him brave once, and his heart does a funny little jump again then plunges because _it’s the bare minimum, he’s a coward._ He gives her a smile but it’s wan. He’s trying after all.

So he doesn’t question it when she asks him for the gold galleon they confiscated from her—and she doesn’t tell him what it is. It’s better this way. Safer for them both.

It’s almost a shame he’s too much of a coward to tell her he’s sorry when he has to go back to school and he’s too weak to face the dim, fluttering feeling he gets around her and he’s definitely too scared to try and tell her that _everything will be alright_. Because at the end of the day, unless he becomes brave, they’re still on opposite sides of a war.

The thought sticks in his mind, cloying and churning, rasping at the back of his throat, unsaid words gluing his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Ginny Weasley glares at him when he approaches but he doesn’t even feel the familiar resentment towards blood traitors, Weasleys and Gryffindors. There’s nothing anymore.

“Luna’s alive. She’s alright.”

He can’t even summon a flicker of satisfaction at rendering her speechless—but she hugs him fiercely for the small act, the tiny, inconsequential phrase that means so much and so little, could get him killed at the hands of his father—and Theo thinks that maybe, for Luna, he can be brave.

* * *

_Dream Away_

There are too many deaths, too many weary faces, but for some reason, hers is the one that stands out against the wall of numbness and pallor. They’ve lost too much, they all have—Rolf’s home of 7 years is little more than towers struggling to remain upright while rubble and dead bodies pile up in disused classrooms oozing blood and death and bleakness. It looks wrong. There are still transfiguration notes up on a solitary blackboard and there’s a Hufflepuff tie strewn over a desk.

He doesn’t know why he’s drawn to her among the other empty faces _(they’ve won, but why doesn’t it feel like a victory when it’s come at the cost of hundreds of children and their safe place?)_ but she looks no different to everyone else. Pale. Shaking slightly, cheekbones perhaps more prominent than they should be and dark hollows under her eyes. And she’s got that expression, looking like she’s trying very hard to smile.

Maybe it’s the fact that she’s sitting alone, apart from everyone else, with nobody but the black, skeletal horses everyone else is avoiding like the plague. Maybe that’s what caught his eye. It can’t even be how young she is—he thinks he recognises her a bit, but it’s only vague—maybe she was in her first or second year when he graduated?

Rolf takes one more second to cast a final glance in her direction and turns away, and it’s nothing but a fleeting moment, nothing more than a glimmer of recognition, but it sticks. She’s the girl who cared about the thestrals when nobody else did, who looked past the dark and found something beautiful within.

And he still remembers the moment all those years later when she’s in his arms, when she tells him all about the fairies on the moon, when she’s proudly holding a crying bundle and he can’t help crying. And like so many people before him, when she tells him that everything will be alright, he believes every word. 


End file.
